


Magic Moments

by fairlyhonourabledefeat



Series: The Chilling Adventures of Zelda Spellman [1]
Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Adults as Teenagers, Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - High School, Canon Rewrite, F/F, F/M, Gen, Multi, Slow Burn Zelda Spellman/Mary Wardwell | Madam Satan | Lilith, The Zelda Spellman Cheerleader! AU You Didn't Know You Needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:28:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29539614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairlyhonourabledefeat/pseuds/fairlyhonourabledefeat
Summary: In the town of Greendale, where it always feels like Halloween, there lived a girl who is half-witch, half-mortal, who, on her 18th birthday, would have to choose between two worlds: my name is Zelda Spellman and that girl is me.[Canon rewrite focusing on the Spellman sisters / Zelda & Hilda in High School!AU with endgame Zelda & Mary/Hilda & Dr. Cee ]
Relationships: Dr. Cerberus/Hilda Spellman, Zelda Spellman & Mary Wardwell | Madam Satan | Lilith, Zelda Spellman/Mary Wardwell | Madam Satan | Lilith, Zelda Spellman/Original Mary Wardwell
Series: The Chilling Adventures of Zelda Spellman [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2170308
Comments: 16
Kudos: 18





	1. October Country

**Author's Note:**

> I have been absolutely haunted by this idea of what CAOS would be like if it was ACTUALLY about the Spellman sisters, and not Sabrina... so behold: the show, reimagined, to be about Zelda (and Hilda!) coming of age. I'll also be experimenting with mixing different kinds of writing together to give it a TV show feel! Is this insane? Maybe! Might be a complete flop but will be fun anyway! 
> 
> What's going on in this world? Well, we're in an ambiguously 50s/60s setting (without the prejudice, mind you). Some things will be just like canon, lots of things will be super different. There will be appearances for lots of much-loved characters (including Lilith, which I'm excited about) in unexpected places but ultimately this is just a fun and dumb Zelda/Mary, Hilda/Dr. Cee endgame type thing! I hope some of you vibe with it!
> 
> I have collated the 'show' vibes here if you are interested!: www.pinterest.co.uk/lauramarlings/magic-moments/

**INT - GREENDALE CINEMA - NIGHT**

Music plays – over the top of the black and white horror movie [[TRACK 1: MAGIC MOMENTS (1957), PERRY COMO](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ_hWTuSYSk)]. On screen, a vampire chomps down onto the neck of a swooning young maiden.

We pan slowly round to the audience. Only the middle row is occupied: a group of four teens - three girls, one boy - who are sharing popcorn in between bouts of hysterical laughter.

ZELDA SPELLMAN (V. O.)   
_In the town of Greendale, where it always feels like Halloween, there lived a girl who is half-witch, half-mortal, who, on her eighteenth birthday, would have to choose between two worlds: my name is Zelda Spellman and that girl is me._

/ CUT TO: LOBBY STAIRCASE

The first thing we spot are the brown and white saddle shoes and neat wool pants of KENNY KROSGROVE (AKA DR. CERBERUS) - he is fresh faced and freckled, olive-skinned, handsome, sporting a head full of dark curly hair.

He opens his mouth to reveal a pair of plastic vampire fangs, and playfully pretends to lunge for ZELDA SPELLMAN, our heroine. The first thing you notice is her strikingly red hair, which falls past her shoulders in gentle curls. She radiates composure, batting Kenny away with a gentle _thwack_ to his chest with the back of her hand. It is clear, immediately, from this interaction, that the pair are very comfortable with each other, like siblings. This might surprise us: while Zelda wears the red-and-yellow box pleats of the Baxter High Ravens cheer squad, Kenny's knitted vest is tucked into his pants. As such, they make an odd pair. 

Zelda's actual sister, HILDA SPELLMAN steps into frame next: she is a sunny-looking, plump-ish girl, perhaps a couple of years younger, with rosy colouring and a perfectly coiffed blond up-do. She rolls her eyes fondly at Kenny, and pauses to fall into step with the final member of our group, MARY WARDWELL. She is easily recognisable by her cat-eye glasses, the lenses are thick and give her a perpetually stunned expression. This dispels any assumption that they are simply a fashion statement. Her dark hair is knotted into a low bun, but several strands have made their escape, making her appear a little disheveled. This is how she always looks: a symptom of spending more time looking in books, than in mirrors. 

The four of them radiate the easy joy of people who have spent so much time together that there is little to feel self-conscious about, even if they hold their bodies with the awkwardness of all teens on the cusp of adulthood. If they linger in the foyer, it is out of a desire to drag their heels: to preserve this moment. 

For change is coming, this week Zelda turns eighteen. 

* * *

"Rats! Rats! Rats! _Thousands_ of them, millions–," Kenny was shrieking, donning his very best Eastern European accent in an impression of Bela Lugosi's Dracula, that was about as convincing as the original. The way he waved his hands about didn't really help, but did threaten to upturn his bowl of fries.

Zelda was chattering over him, the group was used to his performative turns, her tone incredulous: "Like, lured women to a fate worse than death? Really? I'd have no problem with it if I were them. It's not like anything better was happening to them, those olden days women never got to have any fun–" 

"What about the war?" Hilda countered, pointing at her sister over the rim of her milkshake glass with her straw in a 'gotcha' gesture. She turned to Mary, as resident historian, for confirmation. "Stuff happened then." 

"Hilds, I'm not talking about the war, I'm talking about _fun_. People didn't have fun during the war they were too busy–" 

"Dying," Kenny offered, jumping in. 

"I was going to say shooting things, but sure, Ken, also dying." 

Hilda frowned, draining the rest of her glass thoughtfully. "You'd think," she added, after a moment, "people would be pretty sick of all the violence and wouldn't want to pay to watch it in the cinemas." 

Zelda groaned, sliding her coke float out of the way and miming banging her head against the table lightly in despair. Muffled, from beneath tangle of hair, she said something about teaching Hilda a thing or two about violence. Ever the pacifist, Mary chose that moment to pipe up, uncurling a hand from her mug of black coffee - the drink of a true intellectual, Kenny had teased - to place it reassuringly on Hilda's arm. 

"For what it is worth, I think Hilda has a point," she nodded, eyes bright, "they _were_ sick of the violence, to the point where they had no way of talking about it any more, they'd exhausted all the usual means of communication." The other three stared, clearly enraptured, even Zelda, whose head was still firmly on the table, turned to look. "So," Mary slid her glasses back up the bridge of her nose where they had been slipping, "films like Browning and Fort's Dracula gave people a way to think about death and pain outside of themselves. That is what made it so successful." 

The table erupted into a jumble of appreciative, and in Zelda's case lightly derogatory, noises in response. Kenny even grovelled into a bowing mime of reverent prayer to Mary's mind, and in doing so accidentally launching the plastic bottle of ketchup across the booth into Hilda's lap, where it proceeded to roll onto the checkered tiles.

He leapt up to retrieve it, and found himself awkwardly crouched at Hilda's feet. They both blushed, and Mary and Zelda shared an exasperated look. 

* * *

"You love him," Zelda insisted, racing ahead up the dirt path to the Spellman mortuary, the book she had snatched from Hilda now dangling in her fingers. The night was pitch black and starless, though the smoke rising out of the chimney in their home provided a similar comfort. 

"Zelds, please," Hilda replied, jogging after her half-heartedly, pincurls unraveling of their own accord after a long day. "We all love him, you know... as a friend." 

"Speak for yourself," she bit back, though the sentiment left a bad taste in her mouth. She liked Dr. Cee a lot actually, but sometimes mean things came out of her mouth even when – or _especially_ when – she didn't meant them. She couldn't help it: day by day she felt it getting worse, she spat out an icy comment with the same reflex someone would instinctively bring up a hand to catch a ball.

"It's just a book, it doesn't mean anything," Hilda insisted, stumbling on a stray twig buried beneath a pile of amber leaves, and startling. She hopped for a moment on one pastel pink Mary Jane before regaining her balance. Zelda slowed to allow her to catch up, flicking the pages of Kenny's copy of _Dracula_. It was a well-read paperback that looked like it might have spent a bit of time in a bath at some point. 

"You already read _Dracula_ in Freshman year anyway, I know Miss Walker teaches it every year," she accused, tapping Hilda on the head with the book, before handing it back. "I hope you're not playing dumb for a boy, H. Satan save me if you turn into one of those airheads I have to cheer with." 

Left unsaid was the fact that nobody made Zelda Spellman do anything, that in school she spent more time with those girls than anyone else, and that it was unclear if - after her birthday - she'd ever cheer again. She shrugged into her coat on the front porch, hoping to fool her Uncle Ambrose into thinking she'd been wearing it the whole time; Hilda looked out at the waxing moon pensively. 

"Will they have cheer squad at the Academy of the Unseen Arts?" she asked eventually. 

Zelda's face fell and she shrugged as nonchalantly as she could manage. "I guess I'll have to wait and see." 

* * *

Zelda woke up late, it being a weekend, and pattered downstairs in pyjama shorts, knee socks and the first jumper she could find. This jumper was Hilda's, but it had been Zelda's first, she would insist, and she had simply lent it to her sister. 

The first thing she had done when she had woken up was cross off another day on her calendar: her dark baptism was creeping up on her, marked out in red ink. 

The kitchen was the warm chaos she was used to. Hilda had donned a frilly blue apron and was positioned behind the counter, mixing pancake batter by hand. Their uncle Ambrose, in a garish silk wrap, had his feet kicked up on the dining table, scrutinising an ancient-looking tome, probably from the Academy. Next up on his to-read pile was a classic romance novel. An upbeat doo-wop number was playing over the record player - loudly, despite it being before ten in the morning - and their Aunt Sabrina was dancing about like a woman half her age (even in witch years), using magic to drift potential pancake toppings over the counter for Hilda's approval. Everyone chirped their 'good mornings'. Zelda rolled her eyes fondly at the scene and sunk into a chair at the table, choosing an apple from the fruit bowl and crunching into it. 

"Sleep well, Zelds?" Sabrina beamed.

She nodded, announcing, rather primly, "I feel as if my real life is beginning, Auntie. I am so excited I hardly slept." 

Hilda shot her sister a look, which Zelda pretended not to notice, staring thoughtfully into the white flesh of her half-eaten apple. 

"Rabbits feet under your pillow," Ambrose pitched in, "you'll sleep like the dead."

She hummed in non-commital agreement, and lifted a hand, zapping a large knife from the kitchen counter through the air into her hand, much to the room's audible disapproval. She gestured at the apple with a shrug - it tasted better sliced, what did they want her to do? 

"I am thinking about a detox," she mused, "I should cleanse my body before the dark baptism, right?' 

"Oh, Zelda I know the _perfect_ thing. I was reading about this drink, its really just a mixture of–" Sabrina and Ambrose shared a look of concern as Hilda continued speaking about the increasingly foul ingredients in this concoction. 

"Don't do it," Sabrina mouthed, her back to Hilda. 

Zelda coughed to cover up a laugh and swiftly changed the subject. "I've been perusing the book you gave me with options for my familiar. I'm taking it very seriously because I don't want to end up with something grumpy like Salem." 

The cat hissed from somewhere under the table and Zelda instinctively curled her legs up onto the chair. She didn't like it when he was out of sight. 

"Well Salem volunteered to be with me, which is how I know he's not unhappy, not like most familiars who are indentured to witches in an archaic and outdated tradition. I used a summoning spell from the Demonomicon, it was quite simple really. And infinitely more humane. Your familiar should be your equal, Zelda."

She often butted heads with her Aunt, and this was why. Sabrina was so righteous all the time even though she was constantly going out on a limb and making horrible mistakes. It was a wonder the coven hadn't ceased to exist in the time since Sabrina had taken on the mantle of High Priestess, such was the frequency with which evil forces threatened to consume the Church of Night. Her Aunt was a beacon for it, which was why she - who always followed the rules and did things as they were supposed to be done - hated to be patronised by the older woman. However, she also hated to be outdone, couldn't stand the coolness with which the spell was announced to be 'simple'. 

"Great – well, I'll do that then," she nodded, over-cheerfully, "should be a piece of cake." 

Hilda slipped a plate of delicious-looking pancakes onto Zelda's plate, she was hit in the face with the smell of warm vanilla and cinnamon. "I know you said you were nervous before your baptism, Aunt 'Brina, but I can't _wait_ to walk the path of night," she added, keen to convey how totally fine everything was, how absolutely devoid of doubt she was. As if saying it would make it true. She drenched the pancakes in maple syrup and began to tuck in.

After a moment of feeling his eyes on her, her Uncle closed his book and cleared his throat in the way that he only did when he anticipated saying something that would make him unpopular. 

"So you've finally told your mortal friends you'll be leaving?" He asked, the raise of his eyebrow making it clear he knew she had not. "Did you go with the posh boarding school in Connecticut? What did we decide it was called?" He flapped a hand as if trying to waft the memory back into his head. It wouldn't have been particularly surprising if this was actually something the warlock was capable of doing.

"Dr. Stoker's School for Sanctimonious Young Ladies!" Sabrina supplied, cheerily. In contrast, Zelda shared a dark look with her sister: it was like she had conjured a large rain cloud over her head. She stabbed a triangle of pancake with her fork so hard it threatened to crack the plate. 

"No, I haven't told them yet actually. I haven't told anyone - I've been waiting for the right time." 

When she raised her eyes challengingly to meet his, Ambrose was looking back at her grimly. 

"There's a big game coming up this week. I don't want to get cut from the squad at the last minute. I've worked hard for this, you wouldn't understand."

But she knew she was running out of time.

* * *

**EXT - GREENDALE WOOD - MORNING**

_Zelda heads into the green thicket of the wood, dressed much more appropriately for the task ahead than we have previously seen her: in a turtleneck, checked trousers and sneakers. She is wearing a determined expression; in one hand she holds an aged metal bell, in the other a stick as tall as she is, with which she is carving markings into the dirt._  
  


ZELDA  
Spirits of the forest, I pronounce my intentions to thee. Come forth and seek me, and equal we will be. Not master and servant, but familiar to familiar, to share our knowledge, our spirit, and our traits.  
  


_She carves a final circle into a patch cleared of leaves and rings the bell with confidence._  
  


ZELDA  
I guess now we wait.  
  


_For a while there is only the hush and whisper of the trees and branches, and then – from between the trunks of poplars – three young girls appear._ CONSTANCE _, clearly the ring-leader of this trio, is central: we can tell this is the position she always holds in this group. She holds herself with a regal air, which makes her look like a lost princess out there amongst the trees - an unhappy princess, as her arched brows conveying extreme disapproval from the off._

 _To her left is_ GRYLA, _who towers over all three of the teenagers present. She is simultaneously lanky and rough-looking, in a way that is incongruous with her nicely kept blonde waves, which cascade around her shoulders. Something about the set of her jaw reminds one of the watchful stance of a Presidential bodyguard; you probably wouldn't want to meet her alone down a dark alley._

 _The final member of the group is_ PESTA. _Though she is an equally menacing-looking character, with long black hair and pale make up, her eyes ringed in kohl, she is made somewhat less threatening by her resemblance to a cartoon Goth._

_All three girls wear a now out of date style of white dress, reminiscent of that kind of creepy, Edwardian style of nightgown - like unfriendly ghosts stepped straight out of the past.  
_

CONSTANCE  
We heard you were transferring to the Academy, Spellman - so we thought it only polite to pay you a visit first, just so you know what sort of welcome to expect once you arrive. 

_Pesta laughs unpleasantly, and the girls encircle Zelda._

CONSTANCE  
You see we have no time for half-breeds, regardless of who their families are. Blood is blood, Zelda, and we'd hate you to forget that. 

GRYLA   
We came up with one small way to remind you. You can thank us later.

_Zelda's stance turns defensive for the first time as the girls begin to chant, eyes closed and hands outstretched towards each other so that they form a ring around her._

ZELDA  
Oh, come on. I won't be bullied by you three. Not out here and certainly not at the Academy.

_A close-up on Zelda's eyes reveals real panic as a dribble of dark red blood emerges from her right nostril, running down the curve of her lip._

_The hostile witches vanish in a barely perceivable mist._

_The blood runs off Zelda's chin, marking a pale, skeletal leaf underfoot._

* * *

"I can get back from here, Mary, honestly, I've got this" Zelda insisted, though she didn't look very in control of the situation from an outsider's perspective. Her head was tilted up to the sky - giving all of her words a strange nasally sound - and she was clutching the bridge of her nose with the other hand. Really these gestures were having little effect, as was apparent by the state of her white top and the rubber of her sneakers. In fact, her nose had not stopped bleeding since she'd left the woods that morning, despite her desperate attempt to wash the hex from her in the Baxter High gym showers. Mary had found her in a steadily growing puddle of her own blood in the girl's bathrooms and practically marched her home by force. Luckily, the curse seemed to be more of an inconvenience than a serious risk to her health, as Zelda didn't feel any worse for wear, just seriously pissed off. For Mary, however, this amount of blood was a serious concern and she'd been growing paler and paler as they'd trudged along the single path through the fields towards the mortuary. "Seriously Mary, you'll already have missed the beginning of History - and I know we've got that pop quiz next week because Hilda bumped into Mr Putnam at the grocery store last night. I know it will drive you crazy if I ruin your perfect GPA over a dumb nosebleed." 

"Zelda you've been bleeding out of your face for like an hour and a half, I don't care about the quiz," Mary insisted, shaking her head in as close as Mary ever got to exasperation. There were a couple of flecks of Zelda's blood on the lenses of her glasses and splattered on her cheeks like freckles, where Zelda had moved her head too quickly to say something. 

"Oh, I'm sure it's nothing," she insisted, breezily. Mary was no fool - that's why Zelda liked her. They'd been friends - best friends really - since their second semester of freshman year, when they'd ended at the same desk, clandestinely cementing them as project partners for the rest of the year. Zelda, not known for her open-mindedness, had probably written Mary off in the beginning. She was reserved, a little timid, perhaps she'd even seemed _boring_. She was certainly allergic to colour in her wardrobe, which didn't help first impressions.

Though when they'd met up in the library on that first weekend, it had quickly become clear that Zelda hadn't the slightest idea who Mary Wardwell was. The creature who tore through the archives on that Saturday with bright, curious eyes was something entirely more interesting. It became evident that her initial quietness clearly stemmed not from a lack of things to say, but from a razor sharp instinct for when to speak. Zelda liked that Mary never said things for the sake of saying them, that sometimes she spoke with a small smile like she was holding onto the most unbelievable secret. They shared a love for old things: Mary had a librarian's reverence for the dusty, the neglected corners of time, while Zelda loved to be swept up in the nostalgia of the past, the eternal glamour of sequinned dresses, strings of pearls, tightly strung corsets. Most of all Zelda liked that Mary thought a lot about the world, and that it made her kind. Zelda thought a lot - sometimes it felt like she'd never be able to grind those turning wheels to a halt, even for a second - but it only ever seemed to make her more cruel. 

"Well I don't believe you," Mary replied. Zelda let her head drop so she could look over at her, surprised by the other girl's quite uncharacteristic abruptness. Blood fell onto the ground, drop by drop, as they walked on. "You've been acting strange recently, Zelda. There's something going on. This super secret thing on your birthday with your Aunt and Uncle that you can't even talk about? I don't know - you seem stressed." She shrugged helplessly. "I'm just worried about you." 

Zelda dripped along, shoulders sunk, the ends of her hair straggly with dried blood. She was stressed. "It's just a family obligation, Mary. It is important to them and to me–" 

" _Bullshit_ ," Mary exclaimed, her hands flying up in frustration. Her glasses were in danger of slipping off her face entirely, but she didn't seem to notice. They both cringed at the use of language so rarely in Mary's mouth. "Sorry, I just know something else is going on- I don't understand. Why can't you tell me what's up?" 

And maybe this was another example of Zelda misreading her friend, because despite her unassuming exterior - today she was dressed in a sweet shirtdress with a circular skirt, a matching cardigan tied around her shoulders like a picture from a catalogue - Mary was one of the most unwavering people she had ever met. She was far stronger than anyone gave her credit for, and it was wrong of Zelda to perpetuate this mistruth for her own selfish needs.

"I'm moving." She stopped in the middle of the path, ears of corn in the fields high on either side of them. "I'm leaving Baxter High and going to a boarding school in Connecticut. My family are dropping me off on Friday." 

"Moving," Mary repeated, looking not at Zelda, but the blood hitting the dirt like the first heralds of a rainstorm. "Why would you move? A boarding school?" A pause - somewhere in the fields a crow cawed. "Why would you never mention this?" 

"My Aunt and Uncle–" 

"As if, Zee. You wouldn't do anything just because they told you to. In fact, the last time they told you to do something you just did the exact opposite of what they'd said just to wind them up." 

It was pathetic really, she couldn't even pretend. There was no conceivable way on earth she would have made a decision like this without telling Mary: when they studied for every test together, celebrated every good grade, crammed for exams together, made moodboards of their dream college bedroom at some far off Ivy League using pieces cut out from a glossy magazine they'd saved up between them to buy. 

She pretended to wipe at her nose, as if she thought it would do her any good, in a bid to buy herself some time to think. Mary reached over and took her hand, even though it was bloody; she squeezed it reassuringly. Her look said: you can tell me anything.

"You're right," Zelda conceded, "I haven't been telling you the whole truth. It's... not easy." She looked out into the field and, spotting a crop circle clearing where a scarecrow dangled, pulled Mary by the hand through the long, golden grasses towards it. "Come on, I'll show you instead." 

It was like being inside a sunbeam, surrounded by all that warm yellow. It made Zelda feel like a stain, ruining all the perfect light with her blood and her darkness and her badly chosen words. 

"So do you remember the trials we researched, for that book project?" she began. 

"The one about the Greendale witch hunts? Sure, I thought I was going to turn it into a novel at one point. I kept all my notes." 

"Right, well, what if I told you that you wouldn't be writing a novel, like something made up, but more like a biography. Like, _my_ biography." 

Mary rolled her eyes: "I'm not writing a book about you, Zelda. God, you think a lot of yourself, don't you?" 

"No, not like that," she replied, brow furrowed with the difficulty of making herself understood. "I'm saying, what if that coven of witches never left. What if they - _we_ \- kept living here, all this time." 

"Are you saying-" 

"I'm a witch, Mary. Well, half-witch."

Mary stepped back, stunned. Zelda remembered the time she had gone to a church garden party with Mary, who'd begged her to come for weeks. She'd felt so uncomfortable amongst all those open, kindly faces, the powdery smells, the crisp linen and neat picnic food and silver crosses on delicate chains. Feeling stifled, out of place, utterly ashamed of herself for a reason she could not place, she'd lashed out in her usual way: hissing spiteful jokes about the congregation to Mary under her breath. Though nothing had ever been said about it after that day, she knew Mary had been disappointed, even embarrassed, by her behaviour. The same look was in her eyes now, mixed with the anger of a betrayal. 

And she couldn't do it. She couldn't even hear the first words of accusation Mary was working towards. She wouldn't ruin something else. 

She cupped Mary's face in her hands, something fiercely protective tugging in her chest, and began whispering the spell that would take it all back. "Bless your mind, bless your heart, let these painful thoughts depart." And she kissed Mary's warm forehead, setting the charm into motion. 

Her eyes crinkled shut, creased in the way one does against a particularly sharp headache, but when they opened again, they were the perfect still blue of rockpools, of a summer morning before anyone else has woken up. 

"Oh my gosh, Zelda. Your nose has been really bleeding," Mary mumbled, reaching out with the soft pad of her thumb to rub at the residue on Zelda's upper lip. 

At some point the bleeding had stopped, and she hadn't noticed.

* * *

That afternoon, after classes let out and Sabrina had successfully purged her niece of the blood curse laid upon her by Constance and her cronies, Zelda, Hilda and Mary piled into Kenny's lime green truck – the Slime Machine, as he fondly referred to it – and headed to the outskirts of town to pick pumpkins. If the dusky ochre fields brought back any uncomfortable absences for Mary, it didn't show; she seemed, in fact, even more radiant than usual, her whole face glowing in the late afternoon light. 

In a small town like Greendale, there wasn't much to do outside of school hours, so it wasn't a surprise to find a great number of familiar faces hanging out in the make-shift parking lot – something like an impromptu party seemed to be on the verge of breaking out at any moment, with groups huddled together on the hoods of cars, doors open so the radios could play out, a spontaneous football game conducted with a small pumpkin broke out just as they arrived. 

Zelda waved politely to some of the girls from the cheer squad, but unlike she usually did - much to the chagrin of her sister, especially, who had a special vitriol reserved especially for the high school chain of social hierarchy - she stuck with her friends. They said nothing, but she saw Kenny shared a raise of the eyebrows with Hilda when they thought she wasn't looking, and it felt like a stab in the gut. 

At one point, Zelda turned in a panic to find Mary absent, only for Kenny to point her out a couple of rows along from them, chatting to a tall guy her sister identified as Adam Masters, a jock from the year below. He had a handsome, open face, and though he looked at Mary kindly, it made Zelda feel sick to her stomach. 

"He asked her out to the game this morning," Hilda explained, "just came right up to her locker and asked her. I don't know why she said she didn't know what she was doing yet, he seems sweet." The three of them stared; Mary laughed at something Adam said. "Maybe she changed her mind." 

Zelda was struck again by the idea that maybe she didn't know Mary Wardwell at all. 

She quickly became irritated by her sister and Dr. Cee too, who weren't even looking properly for good pumpkins, they were too busy crouching in the weeds looking for tiny frogs and giggling in each others faces. It was revolting. After five minutes silent seething, during which she hoped they would notice her unhappiness, she stomped off by herself, resolving to marinade in her own self-pity. 

At least this made it all very easy, she thought, stomping towards the sunset, the changing light giving the pumpkin patches newly eerie long shadows. There was nothing really to stop her moving to the Academy for good and probably getting murdered by those bitches she'd met in the forest, seeing as her sister and her friends didn't even care about her anyway. 

Something rustled in the foliage before her and she froze, squinting against the obscurity of the dusk, which clouded her vision. She hadn't realised how far she'd walked on her own. When the thing emerged, she gasped. It was horrifying: grey, slithering, reptilian, but with all-seeing eyes. It opened its mouth to reveal a gaping maw. 

"Zelda Spellman, I heard your call," it sneered, and for a moment her blood ran cold. She was startled by its sudden movement, by a flash of light, and all at once it was transformed: a wide-eyed Beagle puppy blinked up at her, its ears long and floppy, its mouth comically downturned. 

She scooped it up, pressing its small, warm body against her chest. "What's your name then?" she asked, stroking the dog's head in a way that made it itch with its hind leg uncontrollably. 

_Vinegar Tom_. Her familiar said, without words. She nodded. It would do well enough. 

"Well it's just me and you now kid," she said, and set off back towards the others and the car. Her mind was made up.


	2. The Dark Baptism

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's time for Zelda's dark baptism? or is it? 
> 
> really enjoying writing this, so let me know if you are feeling it/what you think so far! should probably add that this will be a real Slow Burn so apologies in advance for all the pining, confused jealousy and 'platonic' hand-holding, we'll get there eventually kids! 
> 
> there should be a bonus tag on this chapter like 'Zelda is Cruel because Feelings are Hard'
> 
> also i'm not sure if this is showing up in the tags (maybe something funky is happening on my laptop) so maybe someone can help me (a clown with one brain cell) figure that out

**INT - ZELDA AND HILDA'S BEDROOM - NIGHT**

A bedside lamp on either side of the room cast a golden glow across two empty beds – wherever the sisters are it is not in bed. Close up: from a turntable by the door, a record plays out into the empty space [[TRACK 2: MR SANDMAN, THE CHORDETTES](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKnPrbPK5vA)]. We're treated to a brief tour of the girls' respective spaces, as they aren't present to stop us. 

The half of the roof pressed against a wall painted buttercup yellow can only belong to Hilda, a fact made more obvious by the unkempt tangle of a floral duvet on her bed, which may not have been made since the previous night. Hurriedly dropped hair rollers amidst the sheets and on the floorboards attest to this theory, as do two discarded outfit choices on the back of a chair: an thickly knitted jumper that it is perhaps still not warm enough for and a white skirt, which on inspection is unfortunately scuffed with mud. Kenny's copy of Dracula has been casually - perhaps too casually - discarded on the pillow, which confirms our suspicions. On the walls, a number of strings of flowers and herbs are at various stages in the drying process, and at her desk are an assortment of half-finished potions and mixtures. You probably wouldn't want to try any of them. 

The fact that Zelda's wall is painted a deep purple-navy gives the room the odd effect of being suspended between dusk and dawn. Here we are in more conventional territory for a pleasant young witch's bedroom: her black sheets are embellished with gold stars and tucked very neatly around the mattress. Vinegar Tom - clearly settled well - is snoozing rather noisily at the end of the bed, curled into a ball on a patchwork quilt made up of blue, purple and green squares. It looks handmade and well-loved. A Baxter High Ravens flag hangs on the wall above the headboard, as well as an assortment of movie and concert ticket stubs neatly arranged in a rectangle; a flyer for a drive-in showing of Audrey Hepburn's _Funny Face_ is pinned behind the bedside cabinet. Books in a number of languages (we can spot French, German, Russian) adorn a shelf over a desk-come-bureau, where Zelda has clearly been trying to write a letter. A number of failed attempts - including evidence of a fountain pen explosion so dramatic that magic must have been involved - are scattered across the surface. On one piece of paper we can make out just the beginning in carefully practiced cursive: _Dear Mary,_

The camera pans to the window, which has been jammed open crookedly, and then passes through it onto the slate-grey tiles of the mortuary roof. One sister is perched on either side of the window, suspended convenient nooks perhaps built-in to aid with cleaning those hundreds of tiles, many years ago. It isn't the easiest place to sit, but they've had a lot of practice. 

Zelda is smoking surreptitiously, and, every now and again, Hilda wafts away the smoke as it drifts into her face and eyes. She is in the process of knitting a comically long pale green scarf, which dangles straight off the edge of the roof and into the night. The ease with which they both lounge on the tiles, with the ease of two cats, suggests there is probably some supernatural force keeping them in place – or maybe it is just pure skill. 

Both sisters are looking out into the night, committed to their respective tasks: Hilda to slowly creating, Zelda to slowly destroying herself. The elder sister looks younger than we have ever seen her, as if she's unmasked for the night. 

Somewhere in the distance - we cannot even see the lights of Greendale from here – a clock chimes midnight.

Forty-eight hours until the Dark Baptism.

* * *

It is barely beginning to get light when Zelda crawls downstairs and sets herself up at the kitchen table. She doesn't remember the last time she was the first person in the house up, and the thrill of feeling all alone in the house reminds her of all the deliciously human anticipations she will be giving up: Christmas, birthdays, summer holidays. She cracks open her well-read copy of Satanic verse, and tries to put the whole thing out of her head. She thinks about thinking thoughts of quiet contemplation, which she supposes is almost as good as doing the real thing. 

Ambrose and Sabrina appear next, looking equally unhappy but having been roused by a call on the mortuary phone announcing an incoming body. 

Another human anticipation: funerals. 

If she probed her subconscious, Zelda knew she didn't really want answers from the Dark Lord, she wanted them from her family. But asking for help had never been her strong point. 

"Just brushing up on some of my favourite passages," she announced breezily, her chirpiness an immediate cause for concern, and as she continued to speak it became more and more shrill. "It's hard to know what to do with myself right now, you know? I know it is frowned upon and discouraged to talk to mortals once I'm studying at the Academy, and that it will be better to wean myself from them now before the pain becomes too much to bear, but all the same I think I probably, really should go and say goodbye to my friends at Baxter High, but–" Here her voice cracked slightly, and she blinked in the hurried way one does when they are keen not to cry. "There really is so much to be getting on with here, you know, preparing myself for eternal servitude to my new omniscient and all powerful overlord." 

She swallows thickly. Sabrina and Ambrose give each other another of those looks that are growing more and more frequent. Zelda is used to them being exasperated, disappointed even: there have been _discussions_ about her attitude, about the smell of smoke on her clothes (still unconfirmed), and, in summer, the too-late parties in some guy off the football team’s backyard. Though there has never really been pity in their eyes before now, and it makes Zelda feel unspeakably dreadful.

She thinks about Mary and Kenny in the front of his truck passionately debating whether it would ever be scientifically possible for someone to walk on the moon, while, in the back seat, Hilda silently launched seed pods collected during their picnic into the tangle of Kenny’s hair and Zelda tried her best not to laugh. She thinks about when Mary’s cat died and they all gathered solemnly her back yard to pay their respects: Dr. Cee somehow dressed like a pastor, Hilda reciting a poem she had written upon the occasion, Zelda squeezing Mary’s hand when the breath caught in her throat. She thinks about the French antique jewellery box they’d bought her for her last birthday, the ridiculous but beautiful handmade friendship bracelets Mary had brought back from the summer camp she’d worked on, all the terrible movies they’d watched in Kenny’s front room with the curtains drawn and the lights out. Finishing cheer practice, Mary waiting for her on the bleachers, Austen novel in hand; carrying a crow they found on the side of the road all the way home to rest in a cardboard box, its broken wing the exact same shade as Mary’s hair; Mary dressed up for junior prom, spinning on the dancefloor, eyes closed and free for half a second.

She thinks about how much she loves them. How much she loves her normal, boring life. A single tear rolls hotly down her cheek, and her Aunt slips into the chair next to her.

“I’m not saying you are, but if you’re worried Zelds, we totally get it, okay? It’s not every day you get asked to give yourself over freely to the embodiment of pure evil. Anyone would have concerns.”

Zelda sniffed and crossed her arms over her chest somewhat defensively. “I thought the Dark Lord’s whole thing was free will, not evil. You’re not evil, neither’s Uncle Ambrose.”

“I am a bit,” he piped up in good humour, mouth full of cereal.

“But it doesn’t feel much like free will right now, like if the Dark Lord’s so into choices why can’t he _choose_ to let me hang out in the mortal world sometimes, you know?”

Sabrina sighed and she looked, for a moment, completely exhausted in a way that shocked Zelda. Her Aunt and Uncle often floundered, made the wrong call, cursed and raged and bad-mouthed the more traditional members of the coven, but they were always ready for the next adventure. They seemed so perpetually alive that Zelda never really thought of them as old, aging, but for a moment she saw the weight of the years on her Aunt ‘brina’s shoulders.

“I’m going to be completely honest with you, I’ve been worrying for a while about our commitment to the Dark Lord.”

Zelda shifted in her chair anxiously, eyes darting around the room as if the devil himself might pop up from behind a chair and smite them. For the High Priestess to say such a thing – aloud – was an unimaginable blasphemy.

“Auntie–“ she hissed.

“Oh, what’s he going to do,” Sabrina rolled her eyes, “drag me down there and tell me to watch my mouth? I’d like to see him try. All I’m saying is that I can’t, in good faith, be the first female head of this coven and turn a blind eye to the oppressive patriarchal values we tie ourselves to, replicate even, by limiting our horizons like this. I mean, I’m supposed to lecture you now about giving your body over to the Dark Lord – what is this? 1862?”

“Despite the Civil War,” Ambrose deadpans, “1862 was a much better year.”

“I’m sure it was, Ambrose, for a _man_.”

“Touché.” He gave a dumb little bow and swept out of the kitchen, presumably to go and get dressed.

It was all a little hard for Zelda, who’d felt unwavering about her faith much of her life, to hear. Learning from the Satanic bible was her earliest memory, the copy she held in her hands now, the only physical reminder of her parents. Even when everything felt confusing and she questioned what she stood for, how she felt, how she thought about the world, she’d always had religion to fall back on, because it never changed, it was solid as rock and would always catch her. So, what now? To be shown the cracks in it all two days before she must commit to it wholeheartedly, without a backward glance.

“Why are you trying to make this harder for me?” She shot at her Aunt, fingers to her temples with frustration. “Why do you always ruin everything?”

“I’m sorry, Zee,” Sabrina squeezed her upper arm, “I know this is hard. I just want you to know that you really do have a choice, okay? Always. No one ever told me that, so I want you to know. And we’ll be here no matter what.”

* * *

The dead boy arrived for the morgue covered in stab marks; in Ambrose’s office, his adoptive parents wept. To keep her mind off things before cheer practice, Zelda – though still feeling very much conflicted towards her Aunt – followed her into the basement to inspect the body. Mr. Scratch had arrived to collect Sabrina and take her over to the Academy, as he had been doing rather a lot recently. It wasn’t clear if he was dating their Aunt, and Sabrina got uncharacteristically cagey when asked about it. Hilda had made a shocking joke – for her – the other day about Nicholas Scratch probably teaching their Aunt a great number of Unseen Arts. They had both shrieked with laughter until Ambrose had yelled down the corridor to shut them up.

Zelda wasn’t overly keen on his ridiculous bad-boy costume, thought the leather jacket rather tasteless for a man of his advanced years. He always had a pained expression on his face, even when he was happy, and seemed to take great pride in fashioning himself like an advert for motorbikes, even though he was definitely starting to go grey. Plus, when he’d been for dinner a fortnight ago, he’d mostly brooded at the table, and hadn’t contributed anything to their discussion about the final episode of _I Love Lucy_ because he hadn’t even seen it. Hilda rather liked him, so overall the jury was out.

Zelda leaned against a metal table and pretended to busy herself with filing her nails, hoping the adults would forget she was there entirely so she could observe some terribly romantic interaction over the corpse and immediately understand the whole thing between them. And then tell Hilda all about it.

“Is this?” Nick whispered, clearly taken aback as he lifted the boy’s cold, white arm up so he could have a better look.

“A witch’s mark? Yes. He was adopted so he will have never known he what he was. As he was never baptised–“

“His powers have just been wasting away. Man, that’s no life,” Nick sighed, and in her corner Zelda shuddered at the regret in his voice.

“His parents said he’s been weak, they thought he might be sick but they didn’t know what it could be, and then–“

“Witch hunters.”

“It could be,” Sabrina glanced over her shoulder at her niece, the look was a warning and a reassurance, wrapped in one. “Though I wouldn’t want to cause panic without reason, so for now, let’s keep this between us, okay? Freak events happen all the time. Especially in Greendale.”

But Zelda was barely listening, she was imagining the magic seeping out of that boy over the years like a trail of smoke. She imagined it happening to her, eventually leaving her empty, hollowed out.

* * *

It was time for the big game and Zelda was projecting all of her nerves about the following day, her birthday and the baptism, onto that evening. Her hair wasn’t right and there were bags under her eyes, she couldn’t remember the chant or the moves or which way her arms were supposed to go. It was quite cold in the little pleated skirts that the more old-fashioned adults tutted at as they settled into their seats – Zelda hitched a leg onto the bleachers and pretended to be tying her shoelaces just to expose some extra thigh. She hoped it made their blood boil. The girls were flapping around her, bouncing on the spot against the chill, reapplying lipstick in compacts, gossiping with ruthless abandon. She both felt like she belonged amongst them and that she didn’t. She knew she could do a very convincing impression of one of these girls, but she wasn’t sure she was like them – not that it would have been a bad thing to be. Maybe she’d be happier if she thought a little less. Maybe she’d have gotten cheer captain over Stacey Adams if she didn’t have the potential wrath of Satan to worry about.

She scanned the crowd, which was bristling with excitement, the blue and yellow of their competitors swirled into their own warm reds, which decorate scarves, banners, signs. She spotted Hilda, Dr. Cee and Mary in the bleachers, wrapped up warm in coats and sharing a flask of some steaming drink between them. They waved enthusiastically when they spotted her and she held up her hand in return, managing a small smile, even as it felt like her chest was tearing in two.

The sound of someone clearing their throat behind her caused her to spin round, surprised to find a member of the football team lingering sheepishly, hoping for a chance to speak to her. She recognised the tanned, open face of Adam Masters and fought back a scowl. 

“Can I help you?” she asked, offering up the question with typical Zelda Spellman iciness, the attitude that had garnered a certain respect from her peers while ultimately suggesting they should probably keep their distance. For the most part, they did.

“Yeah, uh–“ he scratched the back of his head, his cheeks colouring as he searched for the words.

“Spit it out Masters, is this about Mary?”

“Yeah, it is,” his face split into an easy grin, relieved that they seemed to already be on the same page, “has she been talking about me?”

“Absolutely not,” Zelda replied crossing her arms defensively over the red ‘R’ on her white jumper. She immediately hated this guy: hated his shiny, engaged eyes, hated his earnest blushing, hated his classic good-looks. She didn’t want him anywhere near her best friend.

“Oh,” he look puzzled again – boys were so _dumb_ , Zelda thought, how did they get by? – but removed his helmet so he could look at her properly, trying for a smile again. She gave him nothing. “Well I just wanted to talk to you because I know you and Mary are friends and I was wondering if you think I have a chance? I’ve liked her for years, honest, but I don’t know if she’s even interested in me. But I’m doing to be a doctor – do you think you can you tell her that? So I could provide for her really well, like if she married me–“

Zelda held up a hand to silence him and he stopped speaking immediately, as if she’d used magic. She hadn’t, she just looked so terrifying in that moment that his brain had almost short-circuited.

“You are _not_ marrying Mary Wardwell,” she replied, “do you know how ridiculous you sound?” 

Adam’s face fell like a kicked dog, but Zelda didn’t feel bad for a moment. Who did this guy think he was? She wasn’t sure why she felt so strongly about this, but she knew it was completely wrong. He was going to totally ruin everything.

“Like I said, she hasn’t ever mentioned you, why in hell would she consider marrying you? We’re kids Adam, you’re completely insane.”

“We graduate this year, my dad says it’s good to have plans–“

“Yeah, well maybe you should _plan_ to leave the country.”

“What? Look Zelda, I’m a good guy, I’d be so good to her–”

“Quit bothering me, jerk. She doesn’t like you, okay? It’s not happening.” She caught sight of Mary across the pitch, watching them with a strained expression on her face, brows pinched together. It gave Zelda a flash of inspiration. She grabbed Adam by the shoulder to stop him going, and tugged a cluster of hairs straight out of the top of his head. He yelped in surprise and she apologised rather unconvincingly. “Bug in your hair,” she shrugged, and closed her fingers over the dark strands, securing them in her palm.

The buzzer signalled the start of the game and she waved him off, feeling smug.

The routine was fine, Zelda was too preoccupied to even kick up a fuss when one of the freshman girls stomped on her foot halfway through. Once the first half began, she slipped under the bleachers, sat in the dark on the damp grass below the bubbling sea of the crowd, and counted out the strands of Adam Masters’ hair.

His kind face grew more and more frustrated as he found himself confused: he wanted to go left, anticipating the oncoming ball, but for some reason his body kept going right, the opposite hand to the one he wanted to use came up to catch it and it sailed over his shoulder. His limbs felt like concrete, like moving in a swimming pool. The feeling vanished as soon as it came, but it probably lost them the game. Zelda felt utterly triumphant, and then awful, in quick succession.

When the game finished, she watched sweet, thoughtful Mary weave her way down the steps and onto the side of the pitch. She placed the back of her hand to Adam’s head as if to check for fever, radiating concern. She’d done a first aid course that summer, Zelda vividly remember when she’d placed her cool fingers to Zelda’s neck, to the inside of her wrist, demonstrating how to check a pulse. Adam Masters glowed like a heaven-sent saint, golden light practically pouring out of his face at the attention.

Zelda felt such a tangle of black emotions she didn’t know where one started and another ended: guilt, regret, fear, anger, jealousy. Why did she care who broke up her friendship group? It would all be over by the weekend.

Adam Masters could have Mary for all she cared, which she didn’t. She’d never see her again anyway. If Mary deserved better than Adam, she definitely deserved a better friend than Zelda.

She was a monster.

* * *

“I’m not coming, Hilda, there’s absolutely no point,” she insisted. She was dangling upside down on her bed, hair streaming off the side and trickling onto the floorboards, unread book balanced on her chest. She was in her pyjamas and had been so since the previous night, her Aunt and Uncle agreeing to let her stay off school to ‘prepare for the evening’s events’. She had done nothing of the sort, she had laid in her bed all day and moped and thought only about what a terrible human she was. She had still not told Mary and Kenny that she was ‘leaving’. Her birthday passed her by with surprising speed – the pale yellow of the morning blooming into clear blue and now softening into a velvet dusk. She’d blinked and missed it. She’d blinked and missed it all. Now she knew she’d missed her last ever day at mortal school she wanted nothing more than to have it back. She’d been a brat, she’d been self-centered and stupid not to go.

She knew she’d not gone to prove to herself that starting from tomorrow, no one would miss her anyway. She’d been trying to punish herself, and she’d succeeded.

The day might have been salvageable a dawn, but now Zelda felt so resigned to her fate that it was pointless for Hilda to even try to convince her to come to the Halloween dance. She’d forgotten it was even happening, even though they’d bought their tickets weeks ago. Her black baptism dress hung on the back of the wardrobe door – a bleak reminder of the night’s main event.

The fact that Hilda was now dressed like Frankenstein’s bride, combined with Zelda’s inverted vantage point and the fact she’d barely left her room all day, was equal parts funny and disorientating. Like waking up from a dream inside a dream, with real world still just left of centre.

“The point is it will be a lot of fun,” Hilda continued, her voice wasn’t raised but it was firm, “it’s your birthday, Zee. You can’t just do _nothing_.”

Zelda hummed lethargically, she’d done nothing all day, what was to stop her now. “I don’t have anything to wear anyway–“

There was a knock on the door and Hilda grinned victoriously, like someone who knew even before they made their final move that they were about to win a game.

“Mary!” Zelda gasped, sitting up so quickly that the blood rushed from her brain all at once, a darkness crowding her vision. Her best friend slid round the door with a quiet smile, one hand gripping a paper shopping bag. She looked lovely in lacy black, a carefully drawn spider’s web decorated one of her eyes, which under her glasses where painted with some kind of green glitter, and – this made Zelda laugh a little at the irony, however black her mood – a witch’s hat was perched atop her head.

“Happy birthday, Zee,” Mary said, ditching the bag so she could give her friend a quick, tight hug, “we missed you so much today.” It made Zelda feel better, and worse. Her head was still spinning from sitting up so quick, and the smell of Mary’s fresh perfume, like a spring afternoon.

“Zelds was just saying she doesn’t have anything to wear, Mary,” grinned Hilda, wiggling her eyebrows knowingly, and Mary jumped up to drag over the bag she’d brought in.

“A gift. From me and Kenny. Well, I found the dress – in a consignment store a few towns over – and Dr. Cee contributed accessories. He promises those teeth have never been in his mouth, but I don’t know if you want to believe him.”

Zelda reverently picked through the bag, drawing out a beautiful deep red silk evening gown. It looked like something a Hollywood starlet would have worn in the thirties, long and sleek in the bottom, with an elegant crossover neckline, a long sash that would trail behind. It had clearly been worn before, well-loved, but it only added to the feeling that she was holding something very precious, a treasure from a lost time. At the bottom of the bag were a pair of plastic vampire teeth – thankfully clean looking – and a bottle of apparently handmade fake blood.

“Thanks Mary, really it’s beautiful,” she exhaled. She imagined Mary in the store out of town, her hand brushing the dress on the rack, her pulling it out. She imagined Mary imagining her in this dress. Her face felt hot with something like embarrassment: perhaps that’s what it was, remembering how terribly she’d behaved towards Adam at the game. “You’re too good to me,” she smiled tremulously, bumping her shoulder companionably against Mary’s. She couldn’t know how much Zelda meant it.

“And I trust Ken on the teeth,” she grinned, feeling a great weight fall off her shoulders, just for having the girls with her, “seeing as I’m not the Spellman sister he wants to get inside the mouth of.”

* * *

**INT – GREENDALE TOWN HALL - NIGHT**

From above, the hall, decked out in paper Halloween decorations, is packed with teenagers, they seem to be coming out of the walls: zombies and mummies, angels and devils, clowns and bats, every conceivable costume is represented in the crowd. These being high schoolers, there is a noticeable gender split along the walls of the room, apart from in the centre, where pairs are jiving (TRACK 3: [MONSTER MASH, BOBBY PICKETT](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBubWrVg9bk)). 

Zelda is easy to spot, a flash of red amongst seasonally spooky greens, purples and blacks. She is dancing, badly, with Dr. Cee. She is a vision – even if their dancing is terrible, her face is sticky with fake blood, and her teeth keep almost falling out of her mouth – because she is beaming, laughing uncontrollably as Kenny trips over his own feet and falls into her. She is so bewitching like this, head thrown back, genuinely enjoying herself, that several of her classmates have been stunned into statuary. We pan across the dance floor to where Mary Wardwell stands, back pressed to the wall, similarly captivated. What goes on in that head of hers? 

In the reflection of her glasses, we see the glimmer of candles. Enter Hilda, who has made a beautiful cake, covered in deep purple icing, hand piped leaves and red flowers. It is complete with eighteen glowing candles. 

Slow motion: for a moment Zelda is the eye of the storm, the room seeming to whirlpool around her as she inhales to blow out the candles. We hear a snatch of the room singing 'Happy Birthday'. As smoke from the extinguished flames curls above her head, Zelda clenches her eyes shut – making a wish. Close as we are, we can see the dampness of her eyes as they flicker open.

Time catches up with us, all at once, the music surges, and Zelda vanishes into a crowd of dancers.

* * *

A slow song has settled over the hall, but Zelda and Mary sit in the open doorway into the carpark. The moon is full and silver, giving everything it touches a ghostly glow. 

"How much longer do you think it will take them to figure it out?" Zelda asks, glancing over her shoulder to where her sister is being slowly rocked in place by Kenny on the edge of the dance floor. Neither of them have any sense of rhythm but the sight of them together is still sweet enough to melt even Zelda's stony heart. Everything about the moment was painfully lovely, actually. The warmth of human bodies radiating out the hall, the inane chatter, the perfect moon, the chill on her collarbone and arms. At her side, a contented sleepiness seemed to have overtaken Mary, whose hair was coming loose around her neck, the spider web now smudged across her high cheekbone, her eyelids heavy. 

Zelda tangled her fingers into her friend's lightly, resting her head on Mary's shoulder. "Thank you for knowing what I needed today, even though I didn't." The lace of Mary's dress was rough against her cheek. She squeezed Zelda's hand back smiling sweetly through the haze of sleep that surrounded her. "Any time, Zee. Anyway, the world deserved to see you in that dress." 

Zelda's stomach flipped. She put it down to nerves. A red light was beginning to creep over the surface of the moon, it was almost midnight.

"Will you promise me something Mary?" she asks, her voice sounding alien, too vulnerable to be her own. "Don't forget me. And don't hate me." 

Mary, understandably confused, opened her mouth to ask Zelda what she was on about, but, when Zelda turned her head, meeting her eyes, like doorways to all the burning chaos in her heart, she couldn't find the words. Their faces were so close that their noses were almost touching. 

"I promise." Mary linked their little fingers, gave a small, reassuring nod. "I wouldn't know how to start to forget you, Zelda Spellman."

* * *

Even though she was dangerously late, Zelda was still thinking about the fact that Mary didn't say that she didn't know how to _hate_ her, about her breath on Zelda's lips, as she rushed into the woods, scrubbing the sticky blood from her face and hoping for the best. It felt like it was mostly made of syrup and it made her fingers tacky. For lack of a better place to deposit them, she tossed the plastic vampire fangs into the lower branches of an oak tree.

As she passed through an arch of dried branches, the portal sheened a mystical blue. As she passed through, her dress instantly turned from red to black silk. One problem solved, she guessed. 

On this side of the woods, there was no hum of wildlife, only deafening silence and the crunch of leaves underfoot. She spotted the bonfire amongst the trees and her heart stuttered. Around it, a number a figures stood to attention in traditional, ritualistic dress. She wished she could have Hilda with her, it felt like she'd left half of her heart behind at the town hall. If she was going to have to do this, she was glad she'd left the warmer, kinder part back there. 

She spotted Constance, Gryla, Pesta: the three of them the picture of misery. Most of the congregation were familiar-looking, but not friendly. The closer she got to the fire, the more obvious it became that there really wasn't a friendly face in sight. 

The skinny, rodent-like face of Faustus Blackwood loomed in front of her, his parents behind him, their mouths stern lines of dissatisfaction. 

"Where are my Aunt and Uncle?" 

"We fear they have been unavoidably detained. We're doing the best we can to recover them, but my parents have asked me to tell you, that our High Priestess would undoubtedly want you to go on with the ceremony. We can't keep the Dark Lord waiting. His time is precious." 

The Blackwoods, stood in their son's shadow, looked like their mouths had been sewn shut. Zelda swallowed back her panic, a challenge considering the pulsing darkness of the night, the curling flames of the bonfire, the sea of strange faces, and the several cups of (potentially spiked) punch she'd drunk at the dance. 

"No," Zelda sounded far more confident than she felt, in fact, her hands were trembling. "I will not sign the Book of the Beast without them here. They wouldn't miss this"

"You do not have to be presented by a family member for the Unholy ritual to go ahead." 

"I said _no_ ," she repeated, so vehemently, with such hostility, that Blackwood stepped back a little, as if he feared she would lash out at him.

"Where have they gone? We'll just have to wait." Constance, who'd been eavesdropping, burst into spiteful laughter.

"Wait for what, half-breed? They've gone to hell." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dun dun DUN


	3. The Trial of Zelda Spellman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me forewarn you that i do not know what this is but i promised you dumb and fun teens and it doesn't get much more dumb and fun than this... i am just LEANING in to the campy elements because we are here for a good time! 
> 
> sorry this update took forever i don't even know what is wrong with my brain! this is all a bit ropey but let me know what you think and i will try and get the next ep up sooner!

**DREAM SEQUENCE – EXT - DUSK**

From above, we swoop down on Zelda, who is still wearing her newly-black baptism dress. She is sat in the parched cornfields, which stretch out around her on every side as far as the eye can see. She is completely alone and clearly as confused as we are to find ourselves here. Like us, she's entered in the middle of this story – she missed the beginning. There is something upsetting about the colour of the sky, a deeply unnatural maroon colour, marbled with dark smudges, the sepia tones of the field. 

Quietly at first, and then quickly becoming uncomfortably loud, a bleakly shrill noise - like an alarm clock or kettle boiling – rings out across the flat landscape. She gets to her feet with difficulty, her dress is torn and dusty. Long scratches adorn her forearms, if she has been attacked by something clawed. As the sound grows in intensity, dark clouds crowd overhead with concerning speed. 

Lightning strikes on the horizon, like the flash of a camera. Seemingly from nowhere, two crows dive. Zelda ducks, and then, on instinct, begins to run. Once she starts, she finds she cannot stop. 

[Played as if on a badly scratched record /

TRACK 4: [TROUBLE IN PARADISE, THE CRESTS.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80LWjLr5-dc)]

We chase Zelda through the withered corridors left by the ruined crops, dust flying as she runs as if her life depends on it. She glances over her shoulder, hair flying in her eyes. The gathering clouds are picking up speed, they seem to be pulling the sky itself apart at the seams, straining at the very cosmic fabric it is made of. 

Ahead of us, a small church - white wood, neat steps. The lights flicker on and off erratically, like blinking eyes. Still, an oasis, a sanctuary perhaps.

Too busy looking ahead of her, Zelda trips, skidding across the ground in a pile of black satin. She scrambles to her feet, urgently. When we zoom in on her pale face, lip bloodied, dirt streaking her face, we can see over her shoulder that behind her the darkness is gathering pace, surging, shifting and reforming itself like the murmurations of an innumerable flock of birds.

When we look back to the church it is entirely ablaze, fire from the inside consuming the entire building. Flames lick their way out of the windows and doors, curling up the sides of the building. 

Cut back to Zelda, her eyes almost golden as they reflect the blaze, her hair shining like pure molten amber. Her expression tells us, that though she is just as lost as we are, she knows this disaster to be her fault, some how. Ashes drift in front of her features, like snowflakes. The darkness is so close to her now, we imagine she could feel its breath on the back of her neck. 

The track, heavily distorted, continues:

_That devil told my angel_  
_I'd been untrue_  
_Won't somebody help me please_  
_Tell me me what to do_

Zelda watches, a single tear running down her cheek, the reflection rages on in her eyes like the fires of hell. When a single lit ember lands in her curls, it glows in place.

**END DREAM SEQUENCE**

* * *

"Zelda?" 

She came to with a jolt, breath shuddering, and was relieved to see Mary's warm expression, the concerned press of her brow, to feel her hand on Zelda's leg, grounding her. They are sat on a shabby beige couch, the carpet too was a strange, bland colour. For a moment, Zelda swore she could still see flames curling up the checked curtains, eating at the faded floral wallpaper. The violence of that fire still burned behind her eyelids, like bright orange wounds, as she blinked herself back into the room. The room in question was so foreign to her that she feared she had simply woken up into another dream and narrowed her eyes at Mary with no small amount of suspicion: finds her convincingly detailed, from the slightly bluish bruise of a bad night's sleep under her eyes to the dark halo of frizzed hairs escaped from the roll at the nape of her neck.

She exhales, tries to remember the particulars of what she had just seen, understands that they are important, but the images – the church, the cornfields, the rolling darkness – are already slipping away. She feels a cold wash of nausea trickle over her the harder she struggles to cling onto them, like ice water being dripped onto the crown of her head from above. 

"Are you okay?" Mary pushes, distressed by the vacant look in her friend's eyes. Zelda doesn't know what to say, is too unsettled to lie easily. 

"It's just really warm, I think I fell asleep for a sec there," she replies with an uncomfortable tug at her jumper sleeves, shoving them up her forearms and then - almost immediately - pulling them down again. It is unnaturally hot in that cramped, dark room: perhaps she did drop off for a minute or two. Maybe her subconscious had conjured those flames to justify to heat radiating off her face, seemingly out of the walls. 

"Well, remind me to get you home closer to your bedtime next time we go out to some crazy party, sleepyhead," Mary teased, light-hearted, glowing with Saturday morning easiness. It made Zelda feel even more barbed, so abrasive relative to Mary's simple, generous tenderness. "Let me go check on Mr. T, we'll get this over and done with and then you can go cat nap." She slid the heavy weight of her leather-bound journal into Zelda's lap as she slipped out of the door, which reminded her what they were doing there. 

The chaos of the previous night came back to her all at once: the dance, her birthday, heading into the woods for the baptism, her Aunt and Uncle's absence, running home alone through the darkness, having to explain everything to Hilda. The house had been eerily quiet then, but there would be no peace today.

When she'd first awoken from a few hours tumultuous sleep, she'd found a storm in their hallway in the form of Nicholas Scratch, seething blackly and pacing. When their initial attempts to gather evidence from the empty bedrooms, Sabrina's office, and the morgue had failed to reveal anything of use, Nick had kicked the kitchen wall in frustration, cracking the white plaster. It was a juvenile move, Zelda thought, and only the beginning of the chaos that continued to unfold around her as other members of the coven arrived to offer - unsolicited - counsel. By the time Hilda arose, face pink and a little blotchy from tears, the kitchen was full of bodies, conspiring and theorising. Hilda, to her credit, immediately began producing mugs and brewing tea, even if she did so with a frantic look in her eye, mascara smudged across her face. Zelda sat on the stairs and scowled until Prudence Night and the Weird Sisters – Sabrina always called them that, even now – arrived in their creepy matching mini-dresses, like the world's most miserable girl band, to forewarn them of the Blackwoods' plans to call round in the hour. 

If Zelda had been more like Hilda, she would have stayed and starting baking some damn cookies or something, offered them to their strange assortment of guests with a forced smile, waited for the Blackwoods to arrive as one waits for the executioner. Unfortunately, as much as she sometimes wanted to be, Zelda was nothing like Hilda, didn't know how to be She grabbed her coat and slipped out of the door, very selfishly - and with no illusions about this - leaving her sister, as confused and scared as she was, to fend for herself. 

This was the sort of thing Zelda Spellman did.

She'd set off into the morning without a plan, she just knew she couldn't be in the house any longer. It wasn't until she was several minutes down the dirt path that she remembered Mary's standing invitation for Zelda to help out with her weekend project. For the past few months she'd been visiting the old people's home near their school to gather stories about life in Greendale in the past. Mary was always talking about the town being special; it amused Zelda, who knew she was right even if her reasoning - something sweet about community spirit and upheld tradition – was way off. 

Zelda couldn't think of anything more boring, honestly, than spending her weekends listening to elderly folk chatter incessantly on about the golden age before the town had any cars in it and teenagers had _real_ manners, or whatever. She'd avoided committing to showing up to help Mary, despite the way the other girl had kept dropping it into conversation, and instead spent most Saturdays with the cheer girls, who, in turn, had mainly followed the football team around to maximise their chances of getting asked out for ice cream (or, more frequently, be dared to make out with one of the boys in the library carpark). Zelda didn't enjoy any of that stuff, mostly sat on the sidelines and bummed cigarettes off girls she barely knew the names of, but sometimes she did things just because they felt like the sort of things she should be doing. Hanging out with old people wasn't going to do anything productive for her social standing, whereas turning down George Hawthorne for the seventh week in a row, sneering at him over her sunglasses, did a lot of groundwork to cement her ice queen image. 

In spite of this, or perhaps precisely because it was weighing on her mind, she did feel a pang of bone-deep guilt when she saw how thrilled Mary was to see her, like, if she'd known how Mary's face was going to light up, Zelda would have gone back and been there every Saturday, pen in her hand, shirtsleeves rolled, ready to do whatever Mary wanted her to. She was painfully aware that even now, she was using this as an escape from the rest of her life. Why couldn't she just show up for Mary? 

There was a loaded question. 

She had soothed herself with the memory of the ease with which Mary had slipped quietly into the Spellman family the previous summer, when things had been so difficult for Mary at home. They didn't talk about that now, the four of them silently agreed to not dwell on it. But what was friendship if not a moment of stolen sanctuary? Zelda knew that Mary would never begrudge her that. 

As it happened, Mary didn't dwell on the reasons for Zelda's unplanned appearance. Mary always insisted she had a sixth sense for when people didn't want to talk about things; Zelda called it witchcraft, and Hilda, a little sassily, countered that it was just empathy, something her sister would know very little about. Either way, Mary had chattered away as they'd made their way to the care home, allowing - in a reversal of roles - Zelda to just be silent, to follow Mary's voice away from the issues waiting for her the moment she got home. 

Zelda turned Mary's journal over in her hands, feeling the smooth leather cover, running the pads of her fingers over the uniform pages. Inside she knew she would find pages and pages of curling, elegant script, always measured, thoughtful like its owner. She smiled to herself a little, feeling a little less hostile towards the space, which appeared to be a kind of communal living space. When she looked again, it had a coziness to it that had been absent in the aftermath of her sudden awakening: a half-finished game of Scrabble on the coffee table, someone's abandoned knitting on the chair. Maybe it would be interesting to immerse herself in someone else's life story for a little while, anything to get her mind off her own. 

On cue, a white-haired man shuffled in through the open door with a cheery smile and a small wave. He looked like the sort of man who would keep toffees in his shirt pocket for his grandchildren, an all-American brown trousered type of old man, with a kindly expression. Zelda sat up a little straighter and gave him her best straight-A student smile in return. 

"You must be Mary's friend, she'll just be a moment, dear," the old man explained, settling into a well-worn chair opposite her with a small noise of exertion, "she's fetching the tea." 

"Should I help?" Zelda asked, rising from her seat, the journal clutched to her midriff. The open door before her slammed shut by itself and she laughed nervously at the coincidence. Must have been the wind. It did feel much cooler as she crossed to open it, her steps muffled by the plush carpet. It was locked. 

She span round, confused, hoping the sight of Mr. T would confirm that she was present, that she hadn't slipped into yet another strange dream. At the sight of his face – if it could really still be called that – her blood ran cold. The journal fell to the floor with a dull thud. 

The man was foaming at the eyes and mouth like a rabid dog, blood ran from his eyes, his head thrown back in a spasm of pain. There was a blurry quality to his face, like an overexposed photograph. His body shuddered, chest pulsing as if something inside was pushing its way out. His head cracked forward. He met her eyes. 

"Dark Lord," Zelda whispered, her eyes wide with recognition. She felt her heart miss a beat in horror. 

More blood trickled from the elderly man's lips, staining the faded fabric of the chair he sat in. "I admire your loyalty to your family, girl," came the voice of the devil, so incongruous in that small, fragile body, "but you will sign my book." 

So stupid for Zelda to think that she could run from an omniscient deity, that she could find any shelter in the mortal world. She was frightened, yes, but she had plenty of room to be furious with herself too – for being so naive, for dragging her baggage along with her, tainting this world too. 

"You will _beg_ to sign it." 

"Dark Lord," she dropped to her knees, felt it was the proper thing to do. "please, I never meant–" 

"Your flesh is mortal, Zelda Spellman," he spat, his head twisting at an unnatural angle. Zelda swore she heard the cracking of bones.

"And all mortal flesh must burn."

* * *

Hilda found her sister retching into the failing flower patch beyond their pet cemetery. Zelda wasn't sure how exactly she'd made it back: magic or just pure terror, which as it turned out, made a pretty good motivator. 

"I'm so sorry for leaving you here," she said as she straightened herself up, still trembling. It had to be the first thing she said, even though she had never been good at apologies, because she couldn't shake the feeling that all of this was her fault, that everything that was happening was a direct punishment for Zelda's selfishness. 

"Well, you didn't half leave me to the vultures," Hilda admonished her gently, her hair - stuck up in a ponytail with a scrunchie - bouncing as she shook her head. She placed a hand on Zelda's arm, her face soft, and Zelda had to swallow a lump in her throat. "But I can't blame you for running for the hills when you heard the Blackwoods were coming. That son of theirs gives me the heebie jeebies." 

Zelda laughed shakily, blinking back the tears threatening to make an appearance. "It's as if a rat found religion," she sniffed, "I can't believe he tried it on with me that one time at Black Mass." 

"Well, really Zelds, you do lay it on thick at those things," Hilda raised her eyebrows, then - with unsettling accuracy - mimicked Zelda's reverent posture at the Church of Night events, her fluttering eyelashes, puffed up chest, the exaggerated way she delicately evoked the inverted crucifix. 

Zelda pushed at her sister's shoulder, equal parts embarrassed and relieved that Hilda didn't seem too angry with her. 

"Actually," Hilda grimaced, "you might need to turn on a bit of that Mother-of-All-Darkness, religious fanatic style charm to get Faustus on side because–" She winced, unsure how to word the remainder of her sentence. 

"Spit it out Hilda." 

"He was coming to tell you that the Dark Lord is suing you– well, _us_ really. Aunt 'brina and Ambrose too. For not signing the book." 

Zelda blanched, the moment of levity quickly forgotten. On trial? This was probably her worst nightmare, the worst possible start to her life in the coven she had waited so patiently for years to be a part of. Hadn't she tried hard enough? She'd said unholy prayers every night before bed between the ages of seven and fourteen, didn't that count for anything? 

"He spoke to me, just now," she explained, "I was with Mary, at the old people's home, and she left to get tea and the Dark Lord was there. He said I had to sign the book, that he'd make me beg to do it." 

"He spoke to you?" Hilda repeated, her jaw slack, and Zelda nodded solemnly in affirmation. But she felt braver now, with Hilda in front of her, on home territory, much braver than she had done then. 

"But I won't do it, not until we figure out a way to get them back." She lowered her voice, even though there wasn't a soul in sight but the crows that lined the fence before the house. "The morning before they disappeared, Aunt 'brina told me that she didn't trust the Dark Lord any more–" 

"She said that?" Hilda squeaked, looking around nervously just as Zelda had done that morning at the kitchen table - as if no corner was truly safe. Perhaps it wasn't. 

"In so many words. So I don't think this can be a coincidence, right? Until I figure out what is going on, I don't want to be part of this coven. I won't step foot in the Academy of the Unseen Arts and I am certainly not going to stand trial before the Blackwoods like a criminal." Whatever Zelda had expected from her sister, the crushing hug she was pulled into surprised her. 

"You haven't done anything wrong, Zee." This was debatable, and, in the case of a trial, actually irrelevant. Witch law was the opposite of human laws, the charged party was always guilty until prove innocent. Hilda pulled back, her eyes shining with the challenge, and Zelda decided then that they were going to figure this out, somehow. "Nick and Prudence think the same as you, I overheard them talking about our Aunt and Uncle also being on trial. They think it is all too convenient that, if they _are_ in hell right now, from the beginning of the trial they will lose their powers just because they are our legal guardians. They won't be able to do anything to defend themselves down there." 

"Then we need to figure out how to get them back," Zelda steeled herself, trying - for her sister's sake - to look a little less daunted by this prospect than she felt. "I suppose if they were thinking about turning away from Satan, perhaps they'd started considering other options. Maybe if we can just figure those out, we might be able to ask whoever that is for counsel. Fight hellfire with hellfire, you know?" 

Hilda ducked her head sheepishly, and then produced, from her skirt pocket, a small book bound in a patterned fabric. Their Uncle Ambrose's journal. 

"Thought this might be as good a place as any to get started."

"While you're at it, I'll go have a _word_ with Faustus Blackwood."

* * *

She found his already dressed in traditional robes, sorting through his notes for the trial in her Aunt's office. She couldn't imagine who thought it would be good for this boy's already inflated ego to let him run a criminal trial, but he seemed to be practically frothing at the mouth with anticipation, his posture perfect, his hair gelled back. 

"You shouldn't really be in here," Zelda observed, draping herself against the doorframe like the wilting heroine of a film _noir._ He startled at her voice and again when he really looked at her: perhaps the dress was a little much really, but she certainly wasn't above exerting a little feminine agency when she needed to. Such a situation did not call for subtlety – time was not on their side. 

"I have permission from Mr. Scratch," he replied cooly.

"What does he know?" Zelda shrugged in return, hoping to convey nonchalance, the kind of easy rebelliousness that someone like Faustus could only dream of. The issue was that this was not Zelda at all – if she really probed herself she was concerned to find that she might have more in common with Faustus than with her own sister. Were they not both pretentious, selfish, often humourless egomaniacs, similarly convinced of their own superiority? 

She could only hope that Faustus was - like many teenage boys – too caught up on the idea that all women were as foreign as alien beings to notice these differences, to identify her poorly acted charade. She lowered herself into the plush chair adjacent to the desk Faustus was working at and crossed her legs in a manner she hoped was suggestive. Faustus blinked at her, somewhat alarmed, and then turned back to his papers. His forehead looked a little damp. 

"I had to see you," she pressed, a little frustrated that the mere flash of some thigh wasn't working some immediate magic, "because I couldn't stand the thought of us being on opposite sides like this, it doesn't seem right. Isn't there some way we could sort this out just between us, like old friends, without the embarrassing spectacle of a public trial?" 

Faustus paused his pen, looking at her out of the corner of his eye while resolutely pretending not to. She wriggled with the hem of her skirt and he cleared his throat a little awkwardly. 

"I'm afraid the wheels of justice are already turning, Ms. Spellman," he explained, not - Zelda observed - looking terribly remorseful about his role in the upcoming event. "But, fear not. The Dark Lord is not without mercy." 

She hummed noncommittally, rather put out by his lack of interest. She'd never had to flirt her way out of something as big as this before, but she'd always fostered a secret confidence that she'd be able to. 

"Of course," Faustus continued, staring at the sheet of paper on the desk before him, "he will require your total submission." 

Zelda shifted uneasily at the tone his voice took on, grimacing safely in the knowledge that he was practicing not looking at her with all the dedication of a monk. She crossed her arms across her chest unhappily, her plans for a quick and easily light seduction going out of the window. She hadn't signed up for any of this weirdness. 

"Well he hasn't a heaven's chance of getting that from me, so I guess we're at an impasse." 

"It would be easier–"

"Oh come off it, Faustus. This whole _Father Blackwood_ act is already grating on me. Don't be such a drag." 

"The Dark Lord has chosen me–" 

"I remember now why we don't talk," she interrupted him, suddenly out of patience and sick of the sight of his face. "Thank you for your time Faustus. I'll see you in court."

* * *

**INT - THE CHURCH OF NIGHT - EVENING**

_We arrive at the trial, in media res, to find the congregation seated in the pews, Zelda and Hilda in the front benches with Nick and Prudence, who seem to have fostered a kind of parental protectiveness towards the girls in Ambrose and Sabrina's absence. The entire front row is surveying Faustus Blackwood, parading in front of the pulpit in his raven-like robes, with intense dislike. No one, apart from his parents and Constance, look particularly happy to see him in Sabrina's place. He is bringing a formality to proceedings, however, a tension that is emphasised by the presence of the three cloaked figures who will preside over the trial, guests from the underworld._  
  


FAUSTUS

We, the profane, gather here in the sacrilegious court to serve the Dark Lord’s justice. Zelda Spellman stands accused before The Infernal Three, guilty of breaking her promise, her pledge, to the Dark Lord. When the accused is found guilty, not only will she abandon her mortal life immediately, but, upon her death, she shall burn for 333 years in the Pit, as his pleasure demands. Will the representative of the defendant please rise?  
  


_Zelda shares a look with her sister, which only we are privy to, and then takes the floor. She is wearing a fitted skirt suit in an emerald green colour, and has managed to look quite professional. The effect allows us to imagine how Zelda might have looked in thirty or forty years time, ageing rather glamorously into the sort of middle-aged woman you would not want to get on the wrong side of. For now though, she is just an eighteen year old in an adult's costume, so a certain amount of feigned confidence is needed to carry this off._

ZELDA 

( _with a polite nod to the Infernal Three_ ) Your honours. We are gathered here today to consider the fate of the accused: my client, Zelda Spellman. However, I'd like to suggest that such a trial would ultimately be null and void in the eyes of this unholy court because I– sorry, _my client_ , is only half-witch, and therefore only half subject to the laws of this court.   
  


_The room erupts into surprised whispers, half amused and half enraged. Hilda shoots her sister a little thumbs-up in encouragement, and Zelda steels herself, hands balled into fists._

FAUSTUS

This is absurd, your dishonours! She is making a mockery of this court. 

ZELDA

( _interrupting him_ ) No. It is my client's legal right. I demand a jury of mortals and a change of venue. This trial will not proceed until these changes have been made. I reject the authority of this court over my client.   
  


_The Infernal Three grumble unhappily from their position at the side of the court, and we can see that their displeasure is causing Faustus to panic. This is not going according to plan. The cogs turn in his brain for a moment, until he settles on a suitably vile solution._

FAUSTUS

Fine. As _your client_ wishes. We shall invoke human laws to test her... to test you. We will subject Zelda Spellman to trial by water. She will be bound and dropped in the river. If she floats, she's a witch. If she drowns, she is mortal, and - as you say, Ms. Spellman - not subject to the rules of this court. 

_Most of the room - including Faustus himself - seem a little shocked at the brutality of this turn of events. Zelda tries to jump in, clearly furious, but Faustus is on a roll now, enjoying the spectacle of it all._

FAUSTUS

As the defendant is so willing to lean on her mortality in this courthouse, I will also offer a second test to Ms. Spellman. If she is a witch, she will have the witch's mark somewhere on her body. If she doesn't fancy her chances in the river, she can submit to be stripped and searched before the court, where we will confirm her identity in sight of the congregation.   
  


NICK

Your honours, the accused is barely of age, this is highly inappropriate.   
  


FAUSTUS

Ms. Spellman has options to consider. Court dismissed. 

_Zelda, sharing a panicked look with her sister, opens her mouth to say something more, confused as to how this whole event has so quickly escaped her grip, but finds her voice absent. The doors fly open as the Infernal Three stand to leave.  
_

THE INFERNAL THREE

No further discussion. Court dismissed. 

* * *

Zelda still felt badly shaken when Mary arrived the next morning to check up on her. She'd spun some lie on the phone the previous day about feeling faint as an excuse for leaving the care home early. She guessed it wasn't really a lie, she had felt terrible. Even now recalling the unnatural tilt of that old man's neck as the Dark Lord's voice rang out of his body make her shudder. Still, it was so like Mary to check up like this, homemade soup in a bowl and concern on her face. Zelda didn't really feel like speaking to anyone, insisted she felt much better but let her up to her room anyway, thinking she'd been rude enough as it was. Perhaps, she thought gloomily, if they threw her in the river later, she wouldn't get another chance to see Mary anyway.

They sat quietly for a while on the bed, Zelda just staring at the sheets of golden light pouring through the window, the glittering dust motes, the way it changed Mary's hair from almost-black to a warm brown. Mary flicked through a copy of the school paper that had been lying on Hilda's bed. It was peaceful, for a moment, but Zelda couldn't get the trial out of her mind for longer than a minute or two. 

"Mary? Will you do me a favour?" she asked, propping her chin up in her hand. 

"Obviously," Mary replied, still perusing the film reviews column, where Kenny had contributed a piece on the newest _Frankenstein_ adaptation. 

"It's sort of embarrassing," Zelda added, and Mary finally looked up, her expression curious but not judgmental. 

"Try me." 

Zelda flushed. "Well, there's this _birthmark_ that all the Spellman women have." Mary raised her eyebrows. "I know," Zelda continued, laughing nervously, "kind of spooky, right? Anyway, I'm not sure I actually have one, and I don't know why, but it feels really important to me that I know. It's stupid, but do you think you could check for me?" 

"It's not stupid," Mary reassured her, always ready with that empathy that she seemed to have in endless reserves. "Come here, I'll check your back." 

Zelda sat up, a little self-conscious all of a sudden, which was ridiculous. It was just Mary. They all hung out in swimming stuff all summer, they changed together for gym, had sleepovers with Hilda. She slipped her jumper off and balled the red wool into her lap, swept her hair over one shoulder so Mary could see more easily. 

For a while she said nothing. The moment lasted so long, was so full of some odd tension, that Zelda glanced over her shoulder to read Mary's expression. 

"Is it the shape of Texas or something?" she joked. Mary smiled in spite of the tight discomfort that seemed to have come over her, her lips pressed into a thin little line. Zelda guessed it wasn't every day you got a face full of another girl's underwear with basically no warning. This was a stupid idea; her face felt hot. She should have just asked Hilda to check. 

"There's nothing there, Zee," Mary said, "I'm sorry." She ran single finger between Zelda's shoulder blades, drawing an invisible line that stopped at her bra clasp. It tickled. 

Her bedroom door burst open and Zelda let out a strangled noise of panic, clutching her jumper to her chest rather uselessly. Hilda tumbled through, followed closely by - and here Zelda decided she wanted a hole to open in the ground and swallow her whole – Nicholas Scratch and Prudence. They looked triumphant, and then, quickly, as they took in the scene before them, a mixture of confused and embarrassed. 

"Have any of you ever heard of _knocking_?" Zelda yelled.

"This is my bedroom too, why would I knock? Hey Mary," Hilda grinned, with a little wave, which Mary returned, looking shell-shocked, "sorry, we didn't know you were up here. Or that you didn't have– _ahem_ , clothes on." 

From the back, Prudence muttered, "I definitely didn't sign up for _this_ , Nicholas." 

"Zee, who are these people?" Mary whispered. Zelda pressed her face into her hands, completely mortified.

"This is Nick, my Aunt's boyfriend, and that's Prudence. I don't know what she is doing here. Nick, Prudence, this is Mary, my _best friend_. She was checking me for the _Spellman birth mark_. You know?" 

Hilda hummed with unconvincing enthusiasm and Zelda was reminded of their brief stint in the Drama club in middle school. An uncomfortable silence settled over the room, which Mary eventually broke, extremely tactfully, by explaining that she probably needed to be getting to church. 

The adults stood awkwardly in the corner to let her pass, and Zelda turned to the wall to slip her jumper back on. Hilda shot her a look that Zelda had no time to unpack. 

When they heard the front door click shut, Nick cleared his throat with unbelievable 'dad' energy, and announced: "Well, she seems _nice_." 

Zelda flopped back on the bed, her hands covering her face as Hilda tried to explain how Nick had got it wrong – 'she's Zee's friend', 'yes, her _friend_ ' – and Prudence paced impatiently. 

"What was so important anyway that you had to bust in here?" she asked, eventually standing up, her mortification transforming into anger. 

"Before you bite our heads off, its good news, okay?" Hilda warned her with a calming gesture such as one would use to soothe a hungry tiger if trapped in its cage at feeding time. "I've got a way for us to derail the trial completely and Nick and Prudence figure out who Aunt 'brina's been communicating with." 

Zelda crossed her arms over her chest and blinked in a way that said: _go on then._

"Lilith," Nick offered. 

"Lilith?" Zelda repeated, "like the first witch, Lilith? The Dark Lord's handmaiden?" 

"Exactly." 

"Well, that's great," she said, the edge taken off her voice in the excitement of realising they might have found themselves a way out. "Let's call her. Do you think she has a landline?"

* * *

Usually Monday cheer practice was the hardest of the week, none of the girls were in the mood try during warm-ups after a weekend of relaxation, and Zelda wasn't in the mood to try with any of the girls after spending all those hours away from the school. It was like she forgot why all of that stuff - the cheerleading, the perfect grades, the gossip – even mattered to her. It lost its shine in comparison to Kenny and Mary and her sister marathoning B-movies on the horror channel, trying to get popcorn in her ponytail, or whatever. 

That Monday was different though. Hilda's genius plan to fake a Christian birth certificate, negating any claim the Dark Lord had over her soul, had worked, for now, and Zelda felt triumphant, victorious just for being at Baxter High against Satan's own wishes. The whole thing took on a delicious new vibrancy in the light of being told she couldn't have it and winning it back; she found herself strangely sentimental about the perfect synchronicity of all those high ponies bobbing ahead of her towards the changing rooms, the warm dusk and sound of crickets. She lingered for a moment, inhaling big breaths of air filled with the scent of newly mowed grass, and felt earnestly grateful, perhaps for the first time in her life, for all the small things she had. Kenny had jumped a mile earlier that day when she'd pulled him into a celebratory hug in the middle of the canteen. 

She was just thinking about how she'd totally get Mary the same way – hug her and apologise for the weirdness of the other day, for Nicholas Scratch chasing her out of the house and how they'd assumed something completely different had been happening – when by some divine coincidence she spotted a familiar figure out by the gates. Mary did sometimes swing by at the end of practice if she'd been doing homework in the library, sometimes she'd even bring Zelda a lemonade from the diner if she'd been out third-wheeling with Kenny and Hilda. Zelda had never mentioned before how much it meant to her, the little things like that, the fact that they were always drawn back to each other, her and Mary, like magnets, always in each other's orbits. She guessed she didn't like to dwell on how much she needed other people, but she did need Mary in a way she found inexpressible. Perhaps there were no words for it. 

It was that moment of dusk that slipped into nightfall like gauze through your fingers, and Zelda sensed it darkening even as she crossed the bleachers towards Mary's outline – it reminded her for a moment of her dream, the church burning and the darkness at her shoulders. She hoped Mary being there meant she didn't feel weird about the other day. 

The first thing she noticed was Mary's outfit, even squinting through the violet dimness, she could sense abstract wrongness about the way the other girl was dressed. Mary stepped forward to greet her, into the amber pool of an outdoor light. Seeing her properly, Zelda stopped abruptly, choking slightly in shock. 

Mary's hair was swept up into a tight, mean-looking ponytail that made her face look long and sharp, those cheekbones deadly. She was about seventy-five per cent leg, pale and ethereal, in a black checked mini skirt that even Zelda considered impressively short. She'd wasn't sure she'd ever seen that much leg on one person, found it unsettling for some reason. Perhaps because the rest of the outfit was also unfamiliar: a light, clingy black jumper, sneakers, and, covering her eyes, a pair of elegant sunglasses. She was even stood strangely, kicked back against the unstable metal fence in a louche manner, her face hard. Zelda let out a breath that was half a soft laugh, convinced this had to be some kind of weird joke. 

"Mary?" 

Mary pushed off the fence, pressing the take-out cup in her hand to Zelda's chest in such a way that back Zelda against the side of the bleachers. It was only because she was so close, leaning too far into Zelda's space, that she noticed that she smelled different too: something earthy and strange, like cedar after rainfall maybe. She took the cup, the crisp lemon of the drink mingling harmoniously with that musky scent. Zelda felt disoriented, as if she'd just stepped off a fairground ride. 

"Mary?" she repeated. An eyebrow raised behind those sunglasses, red-painted mouth curling up on one side into a derisive smirk.

"Try again, killer," Mary said, her voice uncharacteristically languorous in a way that reminded Zelda of hot summer afternoons when all there was left to do was lie on the floor and wait for it all to pass.

With those long, delicate fingers, Mary slipped off her sunglasses, revealing someone else's eyes: still blue, yes, but not the soft, almost-lavender blue Zelda knew, this was the blue of tormented seas. They promised drowning.

"Got it yet?" not-Mary, asked, and reached over to tuck a loose strand of hair behind Zelda's ear. Her skin seared where those fingertips brushed her cheek; those dangerous eyes glimmered with mischief, spoke of trouble on the horizon, an oncoming storm.

_Lilith._

* * *

**EXT - BAXTER HIGH - DUSK**

We pan out into the darkness, through the metal fence, past the bleachers, beyond the school, giving us the impression that someone is watching over this all, silently in the shadows, as [TRACK 5: [DEVIL IN DISGUISE, ELVIS PRESLEY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emjLXdsj6xA)] plays us out to the credits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if only this verse had the internet so zelda could google: 'finding best friend possessed by ancient demoness very attractive am i gay"


End file.
